2023 Cyprien Arlaud Vosne-Romanée

Notes

Cyprien Arlaud runs his family’s domaine in Morey-Saint-Denis, an estate that started as a wedding gift. His grandfather Joseph, from the Ardèche, married Renée Amiot, whose family owned parcels across the Côte de Nuits. His father Hervé took over in 1982 and added vineyards, mostly in Morey. Cyprien came on full-time in the late 1990s, took the vines organic by 2004 and earned biodynamic certification in 2014. His sister Bertille ploughs with horses (she also trains plough horses for top estates all over France), and Cyprien’s reasoning is wonderfully blunt: “It’s hard to get good grapes from vines planted on a cement highway.” In 2012 he launched a small négoce under his own name, farming leased vines himself in Vosne-Romanée, Nuits-Saint-Georges and beyond. In the cellar he keeps it simple, with low extraction, minimal sulfur and no fining or filtration, and his 2024s saw no new oak at all.